Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Winter Readiness

Last night we had a HUGE fall storm. The wind was howling and the rain was coming down. The blocks surrounding us blew out a couple transformers and the power was down for a couple hours, we never lost power, and I wouldn’t have noticed because I slept right through it. This morning walking to work felt like the calm after the storm. The breeze was light and there were ankle deep leaves wherever I walked.

It made me think about getting ready for winter – and the excitement of the holidays often matched the readiness to take on the snow; because it was inevitable that we would have feet of snow come December 1st.

Mom would make sure our boots and snow pants were on the top hooks so we could find them, and often she’d help us keep warm by putting our socks on the door of the oven to warm them up just before we had to walk down the driveway to the bus. In the dead of winter we’d even take bread bags or plastic bags to put on our feet before we put on our boots so the snow didn’t leak through the boot and get our socks wet; resourceful!

I always find myself rushing the holidays – especially this year, but this morning when I was walking in my ankle deep leaves I thought about our snow rituals and begged the snow GODS to not dump on us too early, but to make sure we get our fair share of fall! Then I turned the corner and feasted my eyes on Starbucks, each of the workers were wearing either Santa or Elf hats, along with their red aprons and there was Christmas music blasting from the outside speakers, even I’m not rushing the holiday THAT fast… Ugh, Starbucks!